Long-term Mapping of Ecosystem Services at the Aquatic-Terrestrial Interface

河流泛滥平原和河岸地带是高生产力、空间异质的生态系统，维持着重要的环境服务，如野生动物栖息地和水质。由于这种异质性，河岸系统很难绘制地图，监测河岸带环境服务的变化也是具有挑战性的。在这项任务中，高空间分辨率、长期数据是必不可少的。在不列颠哥伦比亚大学的格格尔景观生态实验室，我们正在开发新的技术，以在几个不同的时空尺度上分析河流-泛滥平原的动态。为了了解河流-泛滥平原系统的长期变化和恢复动态，我们开创了历史航空摄影的新用途，并在当前的提案中继续建立在这一基础上。这些技术能够改进精细尺度空间异质性的量化(超出了陆地卫星等中等分辨率图像所能捕捉到的范围)。这项建议开发并批判性地评估了长期绘制多个泛滥平原服务图的方法。我们的研究设计强调河岸和泛滥平原生态系统，因为它们具有高生产力、悠久的使用历史以及在保护和恢复方面的重要性。 拟议的研究使用了一套测绘方法来量化随时间推移的环境服务，以了解可持续和不可持续使用的模式和驱动因素。在地方一级，必须监测树种和大小的变化；在景观一级，河岸生境斑块的丧失和碎片化至关重要。我们开发了量化历史生态系统服务的新技术(使用历史航空照片和土地调查数据)。具体地说，我们使用历史航空摄影并采用传统的森林调查解释和建模技术来量化生态系统属性，如大型木质碎片来源和河岸栖息地特征。这种方法能够重建20世纪30年代至50年代的历史动态，代表森林采伐和洪泛区开发引起的变化之前的景观基线条件。此外，我们利用历史土地调查数据(从19世纪末)来重建上个世纪的生态系统服务。 我们还考察了对分水岭功能重要的碎片化和连通性变量(例如河岸缓冲区连通性)。我们评估和比较了评估河流-泛滥平原连通性的新指标(如网络分析)的效用，并开发了解释连通性测量误差来源的方法。我们在内陆和沿海河流-泛滥平原系统中对比了这些方法，进一步测试了我们结果的普遍性和这些工具的普遍适用性。 与以前的环境服务测绘工作相比，这些方法代表了对环境服务衰退、恢复和变化的更长远的看法。当组合使用时，它们呈现了对过去景观管理中的变化和权衡的无与伦比的看法，这些变化和权衡对于改善未来的管理至关重要。拟议的工作将有助于改进测绘生态系统服务，这可以帮助决策更好地平衡流域景观预期的各种生态系统服务。

River-floodplains and riparian zones are highly productive, spatially heterogeneous ecosystems which maintain important environmental services such as wildlife habitat and water quality. Because of this heterogeneity, riparian systems are challenging to map and monitoring changes in the environmental services derived from riparian zones is challenging. High spatial resolution, long-term data are essential in this task. In the Gergel Landscape Ecology Lab at UBC, we are developing new techniques for analyzing the dynamics of river-floodplains at several contrasting spatio-temporal scales. To understand long-term changes and dynamics of recovery in river-floodplain systems, we have pioneered novel uses of historical aerial photography and continue to build upon this foundation in the current proposal. These techniques enable improved quantification of fine-scale spatial heterogeneity (beyond what can be captured with moderate resolution imagery such as Landsat). This proposal develops and critically evaluates methods for mapping multiple floodplain services over the long-term. Our research design emphasizes riparian and floodplain ecosystems due to their high productivity, long history of use, and importance in conservation and restoration. The proposed research uses a suite of mapping approaches to quantify environmental services over time, in order to understand the patterns and drivers of sustainable and unsustainable use. At the local level, changes in tree species and size are important to monitor; and at the landscape level, loss and fragmentation of riparian habitat patches are critical. We develop new techniques for quantifying historical ecosystem services (using historical air photos and land survey data). Specifically, we use historical aerial photography and adapt conventional forest inventory interpretation and modelling techniques to quantify ecosystem attributes such as large woody debris sources and riparian habitat features. This approach enables reconstruction of historical dynamics from 1930s to 1950s, representing landscape baseline conditions prior to changes caused by forest harvest and floodplain development. Also, we utilize historical land survey data (from the late 1800s) to reconstruct ecosystem services from the past century. We also examine fragmentation and connectivity variables important to watershed function (such as riparian buffer connectivity). We assess and compare the utility of new metrics (such as network analysis) for assessing river-floodplain connectivity, and develop ways to account for sources of error in connectivity measures. We contrast these approaches in interior vs. coastal river-floodplain systems, further testing the generality of our results and the universal applicability of these tools. These approaches represent a much longer view of the declines, recovery and changes in environmental services (ES) than previous ES mapping efforts. When used combination, they present an unparalleled view of the changes and tradeoffs made in past landscape management essential in improving future management. The proposed work will contribute to improved mapping ecosystem services, which can assist decision-making to better balance among the diverse ecosystem services expected from watershed landscapes.